Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
Behind Bush’s Rhetoric on Iraq: * Democracy * Oil
PM Monday, August 21, 2006
Interviews Available
Jarrar, the Iraq Project director for Global Exchange, is just back from a trip to the Mideast which included meetings with Iraqi Parliament members in Jordan and a visit to Syria.
Bush said today at his news conference: “The United States of America must understand it’s in our interests that we help this democracy succeed. As a matter of fact, it’s in our interests that we help reformers across the Middle East achieve their objectives.”
Jarrar said: “Our meetings with the Iraqi Parliament members were very fruitful, especially with the mainstream Sunni and Shia parties, because we got this strong united message from Iraqi Sunnis and Shia demanding a timetable for pulling out the U.S. troops.
“What is developing in Iraq is an anti-occupation parliament, especially after the war on Lebanon, where people are in the streets in Iraq rallying against the British, the U.S. and Israeli occupations.
“So, rhetoric aside, the U.S. will try to go back to their original plan and insert yet another dictatorship in the Middle East in Iraq that will take its cues from Washington like the dictatorships in Egypt or Jordan or Saudi Arabia which are supported by the U.S. government.”
Juhasz is the author of the book “The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time” and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies. She said today: “More than three years since the war began, President Bush is finally telling the truth about why the U.S. is in Iraq: Oil. Bush told reporters today that U.S. troops must stay in Iraq because ‘terrorists and extremists’ must be denied access to Iraq’s oil sales. Of course, Bush not only wants to keep oil out of his enemies’ hands, he also wants to put it into the hands of his friends. And this front in the war is right on track.
“Iraq’s new oil law is set to be implemented this year, possibly within a month. It opens Iraq’s oil sector to private foreign corporate investment using Production Sharing Agreements. No other Middle Eastern nation uses PSAs because they provide unnecessarily lucrative terms to the foreign companies, at the expense of the national government. Oil companies including Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Conoco are ready to sign PSAs once the law is passed. They will, however, need security to get to work. This is where the U.S. troops come in. It is this ‘oil timeline’ that is determining how long U.S. troops will stay in Iraq.”
Juhasz has recently written about the findings of the July 2006 report to Congress from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
For more information, contact Sam Husseini or David Zupan at the Institute for Public Accuracy.
Amy Goodman of Democracy NOW! interviewed Raed Jarrar on Monday.
She also interviewed Willem Marx, currently a graduate student in journalism at New York University. During his last semester at Oxford, he’d jumped at the chance to become a summer media intern for the Lincoln Group in Iraq, hoping to gain war reporting skills. Instead, he found himself working as a military propagandist who eventually informed on then interrogated members of his Iraqi staff with a loaded Glock in his waistband and two Sunni strongmen (former members of Mukhabarat, the intelligence arm of the Iraqi Bath Party) in attendance, in order to discover who’d misappropriated a few thousand of the dollars used to place reports in Iraq’s “free” press. Marx recounts his experiences in a “what I did over summer vacation” report, ‘Misinformation Intern’, which can be read in the September issue of Harper’s.
I’ve been a subscriber to Harper’s since the Impeachment issue but I wouldn’t have known about Marx if not for Goodman’s interview. The September issue has been sitting on my desk since it arrived, at the bottom of a pile of books and other magazines that would require me quitting my job to read it all in any semblance of timeliness. I haven’t even bothered to read the contents of Harper’s last two issues, or the elegant prose of Lewis Lapham, an extraordinary writer with an exasperating blind spot for dastardly liberal deeds.
The Marx article is not available online, unlike this excerpt from daytime soap writer Kola Boof‘s book, Diary of a Lost Girl: The Autobiography of Kola Boof, which Harper’s introduces by reminding readers that when she was interviewed on Fox News by Rita Cosby in 2003, “the network reported that Boof had lived for several months in 1996 on an estate in Morocco with Osama bin Laden.”
I vaguely recall Boof’s claim just as I do the text of this document allegedly found in the safe house of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and released by Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie to the Associated Press. (reprinted in extended entry.)
But I didn’t recall it as Harper’s published it:
[Agenda]
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
From a document found in the safe house of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, after he was killed by U.S. forces on June 7. The document was released to the Associated Press by Iraqi National Security Adviser Moufawak al-Rubaie.
The best way to get out of this crisis is to entangle the American forces in a war against Iran. A war between the Americans and Iran will have many benefits in favor of the Sunni and the resistance, such as:
1. Freeing the Sunni people in Iraq, who are 30 percent of the population and under Shiite rule.
2. Drowning the Americans in another war that will engage many of their forces.
3. Acquiring new weapons from the Iranian side, either during the battles or after the fall of Iran.
4. Enticing Iran to help the resistance, because of its need for our help.
How to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran? It is necessary to first exaggerate the Iranian danger by doing the following:
1. Disseminating threatening messages attributed to the Iranian Shiites.
2. Kidnapping hostages and implicating the Shiite Iranian side.
3. Advertising that Iran has chemical and nuclear weapons and is threatening the West.
4. Executing bombings in the West and planting Iranian Shiite fingerprints and evidence.
5. Declaring the existence of a relationship between Iran and terrorist groups.
6. Disseminating bogus confessions showing that Iran is in possession of weapons of mass destruction or that there are attempts by Iranian intelligence to undertake terrorist operations in America and the West.
Let us hope for success and for God’s help.
(as it appears on p. 24, HARPER’S MAGAZINE/SEPTEMBER 2006)
Harper’s doesn’t provide its source. Considering the costume changes of the actors in the wars being waged, such as Israel dropping into cease-fire zones dressed as Lebanese soldiers, and Bush claiming possible al Qaeda affiliates as allies, a thorough desk clearing is in order.
On his return, Bush held a press conference during which, it seemed, he could barely contain his enthusiasm. In response to a question about progress in providing electricity, producing oil, and controlling violence, he swerved into a discussion of his encounter with the speaker of Iraq’s parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani. The President didn’t seem to recall his name but readily remembered his religion:
The Sunni—I was impressed, by the way, by the Speaker—Denny Hastert told me I’d like him; Denny met with him. And I was impressed by him. He’s a fellow that had been put in prison by Saddam and, interestingly enough, put in prison by us. And he made a decision to participate in the government. And he was an articulate person. He talked about running the parliament. It was interesting to see a person that could have been really bitter talk about the skills he’s going to need to bring people together to run the parliament. And I found him to be a hopeful person.
They tell me that he wouldn’t have taken my phone call a year ago—I think I might have shared this with you at one point in time—and there I was, sitting next to the guy. And I think he enjoyed it as much as I did. It was a refreshing moment.
The incurious White House press corps never asked the obvious question: Why had the United States jailed al-Mashhadani? According to Sunnis and Shiites at the top levels of government in Iraq, al-Mashhadani was a member of, or closely associated with, two al-Qaeda-linked terrorists groups, Ansar Islam and Ansar al-Sunna. The first operated until 2003 in a no man’s land high in the mountains between Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran while the second has been responsible for some of the worse terrorist attacks on Iraq’s Shiites and Kurds. The Iraqis say they gave the Americans specific intelligence on al-Mashhadani’s affiliations with those groups and his actions in support of terrorists.
None of this seems to have mattered to a president who is as casual in his approach to national security as his defense secretary. At the same press conference Bush repeated that “the American people have got to understand that Iraq is a part of the war on terror.”
Text of al-Zarqawi Safe-House Document
Jun 15 8:58 AM US/Eastern
By The Associated Press
Text of a document discovered in terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s hideout. The document was provided in English by Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie:
___
The situation and conditions of the resistance in Iraq have reached a point that requires a review of the events and of the work being done inside Iraq. Such a study is needed in order to show the best means to accomplish the required goals, especially that the forces of the National Guard have succeeded in forming an enormous shield protecting the American forces and have reduced substantially the losses that were solely suffered by the American forces. This is in addition to the role, played by the Shi’a (the leadership and masses) by supporting the occupation, working to defeat the resistance and by informing on its elements.
As an overall picture, time has been an element in affecting negatively the forces of the occupying countries, due to the losses they sustain economically in human lives, which are increasing with time. However, here in Iraq, time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance for the following reasons:
1. By allowing the American forces to form the forces of the National Guard, to reinforce them and enable them to undertake military operations against the resistance.
2. By undertaking massive arrest operations, invading regions that have an impact on the resistance, and hence causing the resistance to lose many of its elements.
3. By undertaking a media campaign against the resistance resulting in weakening its influence inside the country and presenting its work as harmful to the population rather than being beneficial to the population.
4. By tightening the resistance’s financial outlets, restricting its moral options and by confiscating its ammunition and weapons.
5. By creating a big division among the ranks of the resistance and jeopardizing its attack operations, it has weakened its influence and internal support of its elements, thus resulting in a decline of the resistance’s assaults.
6. By allowing an increase in the number of countries and elements supporting the occupation or at least allowing to become neutral in their stand toward us in contrast to their previous stand or refusal of the occupation.
7. By taking advantage of the resistance’s mistakes and magnifying them in order to misinform.
Based on the above points, it became necessary that these matters should be treated one by one:
1. To improve the image of the resistance in society, increase the number of supporters who are refusing occupation and show the clash of interest between society and the occupation and its collaborators. To use the media for spreading an effective and creative image of the resistance.
2. To assist some of the people of the resistance to infiltrate the ranks of the National Guard in order to spy on them for the purpose of weakening the ranks of the National Guard when necessary, and to be able to use their modern weapons.
3. To reorganize for recruiting new elements for the resistance.
4. To establish centers and factories to produce and manufacture and improve on weapons and to produce new ones.
5. To unify the ranks of the resistance, to prevent controversies and prejudice and to adhere to piety and follow the leadership.
6. To create division and strife between American and other countries and among the elements disagreeing with it.
7. To avoid mistakes that will blemish the image of the resistance and show it as the enemy of the nation.
In general and despite the current bleak situation, we think that the best suggestions in order to get out of this crisis is to entangle the American forces into another war against another country or with another of our enemy force, that is to try and inflame the situation between American and Iraq or between America and the Shi’a in general.
Specifically the Sistani Shi’a, since most of the support that the Americans are getting is from the Sistani Shi’a, then, there is a possibility to instill differences between them and to weaken the support line between them; in addition to the losses we can inflict on both parties. Consequently, to embroil America in another war against another enemy is the answer that we find to be the most appropriate, and to have a war through a delegate has the following benefits:
1. To occupy the Americans by another front will allow the resistance freedom of movement and alleviate the pressure imposed on it.
2. To dissolve the cohesion between the Americans and the Shi’a will weaken and close this front.
3. To have a loss of trust between the Americans and the Shi’a will cause the Americans to lose many of their spies.
4. To involve both parties, the Americans and the Shi’a, in a war that will result in both parties being losers.
5. Thus, the Americans will be forced to ask the Sunni for help.
6. To take advantage of some of the Shia elements that will allow the resistance to move among them.
7. To weaken the media’s side which is presenting a tarnished image of the resistance, mainly conveyed by the Shi’a.
8. To enlarge the geographical area of the resistance movement.
9. To provide popular support and cooperation by the people.
The resistance fighters have learned from the result and the great benefits they reaped, when a struggle ensued between the Americans and the Army of Al-Mahdi. However, we have to notice that this trouble or this delegated war that must be ignited can be accomplished through:
1. A war between the Shi’a and the Americans.
2. A war between the Shi’a and the secular population (such as Ayad ‘Alawi and al-Jalabi.)
3. A war between the Shi’a and the Kurds.
4. A war between Ahmad al-Halabi and his people and Ayad ‘Alawi and his people.
5. A war between the group of al-Hakim and the group of al-Sadr.
6. A war between the Shi’a of Iraq and the Sunni of the Arab countries in the gulf.
7. A war between the Americans and Iraq. We have noticed that the best of these wars to be ignited is the one between the Americans and Iran, because it will have many benefits in favor of the Sunni and the resistance, such as:
1. Freeing the Sunni people in Iraq, who are (30 percent) of the population and under the Shi’a Rule.
2. Drowning the Americans in another war that will engage many of their forces.
3. The possibility of acquiring new weapons from the Iranian side, either after the fall of Iran or during the battles.
4. To entice Iran towards helping the resistance because of its need for its help.
5. Weakening the Shi’a supply line.
The question remains, how to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran? It is not known whether American is serious in its animosity towards Iraq, because of the big support Iran is offering to America in its war in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Hence, it is necessary first to exaggerate the Iranian danger and to convince America and the west in general, of the real danger coming from Iran, and this would be done by the following:
1. By disseminating threatening messages against American interests and the American people and attribute them to a Shi’a Iranian side.
2. By executing operations of kidnapping hostages and implicating the Shi’a Iranian side.
3. By advertising that Iran has chemical and nuclear weapons and is threatening the west with these weapons.
4. By executing exploding operations in the west and accusing Iran by planting Iranian Shi’a fingerprints and evidence.
5. By declaring the existence of a relationship between Iran and terrorist groups (as termed by the Americans).
6. By disseminating bogus messages about confessions showing that Iran is in possession of weapons of mass destruction or that there are attempts by the Iranian intelligence to undertake terrorist operations in America and the west and against western interests.
Let us hope for success and for God’s help.